Nobody sets out to create a "pay-to-play" barrier. You're not sitting in your office scheming about how to exclude families. You're trying to run a sustainable program, cover your costs, and give kids a great experience.
And yet, families are getting priced out. Not by one big decision, but by a dozen small ones that stack up until participation becomes impossible for anyone who isn't comfortably middle class or above.
The numbers tell the story. The average U.S. sports family spent $1,016 on a child's primary sport in 2024, up 46% since 2019. Add in spending on other sports and you're approaching $1,500 per kid per year. Meanwhile, lower-income families participate at significantly lower rates, with "too expensive" showing up as a top barrier in survey after survey.
Here's what program directors often miss: the issue isn't your registration fee. It's the Total Cost to Participate, which includes everything families actually pay: registration, required gear, travel, processing fees, time costs, and the uncertainty of committing money to something that might change.
Your goal isn't to make everything free. It's to lower the entry barrier by reducing friction, surprise, and uncertainty while keeping your program sustainable.
Let's walk through the ten most common pricing mistakes and how to fix them.
1. One Big Upfront Payment
"Pay $400 today or you're out."
Even families who can afford the season often can't afford the season all at once. Cash flow kills registrations. A parent might have the money by March, but if you're demanding it all in January, they're not signing up.
The fix: Offer real installment plans with a low initial payment and clear due dates. Many registration platforms let you set the "due upon purchase" amount very low, even as little as a deposit, then split the rest into manageable chunks. Build in autopay reminders, grace periods, and a workflow for updating expired cards.
Payment plans aren't charity. They're smart business. You'd rather have a family paying over three months than no family at all.
2. Checkout Surprise Fees
You advertise one price on your website. Then families hit checkout and see processing fees, platform fees, and charges they didn't expect. The total is suddenly $40 higher than what they budgeted for.
Families don't just feel squeezed. They feel tricked. That increases abandonment, refund requests, and bad word-of-mouth.
The fix: Publish an all-in price upfront, or at minimum, clearly label any additional fees before families start the registration process. If you pass through credit card fees, be aware that rules vary by state and card network, and debit surcharging is federally prohibited.
Better yet, offer ACH or check/cash options to reduce fees without surprises. Transparency builds trust. Surprises destroy it.
3. Mandatory Uniform Bundles That Reset Every Season
A new $120 kit every single season is a hidden participation tax. Families who've been with you for three years have now spent $360 on uniforms alone, and the old ones are sitting in a drawer.
The fix: Extend your uniform cycles to two or three years. Make the jersey the only truly required item and let families reuse shorts and socks. Host a used-uniform swap at evaluations or registration events.
Uniforms should identify your players, not drain your families.
4. "Affordable" Fees That Require Expensive Travel
Your registration fee looks reasonable. But then families discover that "the team" travels to three out-of-state tournaments, each requiring hotels, gas, and meals. What they thought was a $300 commitment is now a $1,200 commitment.
Travel and lodging are major drivers of rising youth sports costs. Programs accidentally build travel expectations into what families assumed was local rec.
The fix: Split your offerings into clear tiers. Local league with no hotels is the default pathway. Select or travel programs are opt-in with transparent travel budgets and calendars published upfront. Families should know exactly what they're signing up for before they commit.
5. Tryout Fees and Evaluation Deposits
Charging families just to be considered sends a signal: this program is for people who can afford to take risks. For families already feeling on the margins, a $50 tryout fee is enough to make them not show up at all.
The fix: Make evaluations free, or credit tryout fees toward registration if the player joins. Offer a no-questions waiver for families who need it. The goal is to see every kid who wants to play, not just the ones whose parents can absorb the cost of maybe.
6. Pricing That Punishes Multi-Kid Families
Some households are juggling multiple children across multiple sports and multiple seasons. Your pricing structure might work fine for a family with one kid. For a family with three, it's a dealbreaker.
The fix: Implement at least one of these: a family cap that limits total household spending per season, an automatic sibling discount, or a multi-sport bundle if you run multiple programs. Acknowledge that families come in different sizes and budget accordingly.
7. Late Fees That Hit the Wrong People
Late fees are supposed to discourage procrastination. In practice, they often punish families with unpredictable work schedules, language barriers, or limited internet access. The "procrastinators" you're imagining usually aren't the ones getting hit.
The fix: Replace punitive late fees with better incentives. Offer an early-bird window with a lower price. Use waitlist pricing that only increases when you're genuinely at capacity. Allow a small deposit to hold a spot during an enrollment window. Reward early commitment instead of punishing late arrival.
8. Scholarships That Exist But Nobody Trusts
Many programs have financial assistance available, but families don't know about it, don't understand how to access it, or don't trust that it's real. Informal waivers handed out inconsistently can feel stigmatizing or arbitrary.
The fix: Standardize your assistance program. Create a simple, short, confidential application. Publish how many spots you can cover per season so families know it's a real budget line, not a maybe. Commit to a response window: "You'll hear back within 72 hours."
Look at how larger organizations normalize this. Little League's T-Mobile Call Up Grant has covered registration fees for tens of thousands of families. All Kids Play offers grants for registration and related costs. Many YMCAs use sliding-scale assistance as standard practice. Make financial help feel like a normal part of your program, not a shameful exception.
9. "Optional" Costs That Aren't Really Optional
Team photos. Spirit wear. Extra training sessions. Tournament add-ons. Technically optional. But if the culture implies that "real families" participate in all of it, you've created a social paywall.
Families who can't afford the extras start feeling like outsiders. Their kids notice. Eventually, they leave.
The fix: Be explicit about what's included for everyone, what's truly optional, and what financial assistance covers. If something is optional, make sure it actually feels optional. No guilt trips. No side-eye at families who skip the hoodie order.
10. Full Season or Nothing
If the only way to join your program is a full-season, full-commitment registration at $300 to $800, families who aren't sure yet simply won't take the risk. They'll wait until next year, or try something else, or skip organized sports entirely.
The fix: Build a pricing ramp instead of a cliff. Offer a low-cost trial product: a four-to-six week intro clinic, a "learn to play" block with minimal gear requirements, or a short-season option alongside your full season.
Let families say "yes" with low risk. Then earn the right to their full commitment.
The Pricing Equity Audit You Can Do This Week
Want to know if your program is accidentally pricing families out? Run a quick audit.
List every required cost: registration, uniform, travel, tournaments, platform fees. Add it all up.
Identify the cliff: what's the minimum cash a family needs to hand over today to join?
Track drop-off: where do families abandon registration? At the start? At checkout? After fees appear?
Survey non-registrants: ask families who didn't sign up what stopped them. Give them multiple choice options including "too expensive," "time commitment," "transportation," and "uncertainty."
Redesign one entry point: pick the lowest-hanging fruit, whether that's a trial program, a better payment plan, or an all-in pricing sheet.
Measure retention: did first-time families come back next season? That's the number that tells you if your pricing is working.
The Bigger Picture
Pricing families out doesn't happen through malice. It happens through inattention. Small decisions accumulate. Fees stack up. Friction builds. And one day you look around and realize your program doesn't look like your community anymore.
The programs that grow and thrive are the ones that design for accessibility from the start. Not as an afterthought. Not as a favor. As a core part of how they operate.
You're not trying to exclude anyone. Make sure your pricing structure isn't doing it for you.
Ian Goldberg is the CEO of Signature Media and the Editor of the largest and fastest growing sports parenting newsletter. He’s been recognized as an industry expert by the National Alliance for Youth Sports, the US Olympic Committee’s Truesport, and the Aspen Institute's Project Play. Ian is also a suburban NJ sports dad of two teenage daughters and has over 2,000 hours of volunteer time coaching them (which he calls the most fun form of R&D for his newsletter content). Ian and his team provide players, coaches, parents and program directors with the articles and content they need to have a great sports season. Ian has spent most of his career in digital product development and marketing and got his start at the White House where he worked for the economic advisors to two US Presidents.
